Gesundheit!

It's thanksgiving here in the states today and usually most things around the holiday are put aside to get ready for family and cooking.  However, we took a vote and decided we'd do both classes as way to squeeze in as much training as we could.  However the first class only had five of us and then after class was only three of us. 

Reed started the class very quickly and that means the bare minimum of warm so we could get to content.  He asked how much was on my plate.  This meant that he was learning something and needed someone else to work with.  He does his best learning by teaching someone else.  Since he's kind of being pushed to work on his next belt he needs to learn four new kata under the Ryuei-Ryu school.  We'd learned Anan which was the fourth I believe, but Pachu is the first.  At any rate the pronunciation of said kata sounds like a sneeze to me; thus the title of the post.

We got most of the way through it, but class ended.  Everybody said their farewells since I'll be going on vacation to Cambodia and Malaysia for the next couple of weeks. 

After class consisted of Kyle, Daniel and myself.  This is Kyle's first after class session and thankfully we had the garage to ourselves.  It made for a spacious environment since it's usually six of us packed in there. 

As usual, it was work on the kata to refine pieces and parts for quite a long time.  This time I took notes on four areas to work on.  I know that by the end of the year I'll be pretty sick of this kata, but I'll look damn good doing it. 

We finished up by doing the application twice.  I'm ironing pieces of that out to smooth things out.  By the time I get back Mark will probably be fantastic and I'll have to remember stuff all over again.

On Track!

Roughly five months to go before the confirmation exam and Reed Sensei says that Mark and I are on track!

This is a big deal because after voicing some small frustrations about progress he pointed out that we only need to learn the other side of the Kyoku application and some elbow techniques. 

Many of the moves we employ in the application follow the rules of traditional karate.  The most common of these is that you block over your leading leg.  For most of the first year of training this rule is pretty much universal, but somewhere along the way the teachers start saying there are exceptions to the rule.  I assume this is the case because reality has a way of messing up what we do in practice. 

So last night we were performing a complex arrangement of arm-bars and double blocks and it was pointed out that we'd get confused because one of the blocks was not over the lead leg.  So the rule was explained to us as; "always block over the lead leg, but there is always an exception to the rule.  The second piece is that the next move should remediate the fact that your hands are in the incorrect position."

And sure enough the next move in the sequence corrects the hand placement. That was a long time learning, but when we are moving it looks fantastic.  The whole application is quite action packed and requires a lot of energy.  So by the end of the second class I'm fairly tired.  It was a pleasure to hit the sack last night because I was so wiped.  I can't imagine getting used to this level of work combined with the falls and throws, but it does come with a immense sense of accomplishment. 

Last Night:

- 1 x Koyoku Roku Dan

- 1 x Nifanshi Sho Dan

- 10 Bunkai for KRD

- 3 x NSD Oyo

- 1ish of KRD application.

After Class:

- 1 hour of application with refinement.  Maybe 10 times? 

Just Some More Work

My wife is about to head out of town for several months, so I'd like to spend time with her as much as possible.  As usual Karate has to take a back seat to my real life demands, but since I need the exercise no matter what I managed to do the first hour of class. 

I left the house a bit early and went to the building we have class in hopes that Mark would be there early.  My gamble was successful.  Mark has been coming to class a bit early himself to warm up and practice on his own.  So after a little visiting we got into the application, but the frustration of memory betrayal reared it's ugly head.  I could remember components of the application, but not how they tied together.  By the time we got through a couple of guesses Reed Sensei showed and started sorting us out.  But it was for not; class started and after warm up our practice outline was:

- 4 x Nifanshi Shodan Kata

- 4 x Kyoku Roku Dan Kata

- 2 x Nifanshi Shodan Oyo

- 2 x Kyouku Bunkai

This took exactly the whole hour.  I had a few questions about foot placement in the Kyoku, but that was the whole show.

The hardwood was unforgiving and my back and knees feel bruised and sensitive, but possibly the hardest part of this is that my new found desire to have more flexibility in my back is meeting a big amount of resistance.  Unfortunately our side kick warm up makes my back's issue very well known.  To exacerbate that further, the breakfalls on hardwood have made my back very ouchy indeed. 

Early Onset Rigor Mortis

Exercise, by it's very nature, is going to make the practitioner sore and stiff especially as the amount of effort is increased.  That being said, I'd hate to admit that I usually put in the amount of effort needed at the time and usually not much more. 

For me it has always been an issue of gain, fighting with the avoidance of pain and discomfort.  However with this confirmation year I'm actually motivated to do better and take the accompanying discomfort in stride.  That is; until it got embarrassing. 

As a personal milestone I'm incredibly pleased to have finished one half of the long application.  That doesn't mean I'm good at it, but I've made it to the end of one side.  The Application is a manufactured expression of all the bunkai from a single kata.  In this case it's for Kyoku Roku Dan, a kata with around 50 moves.  Instead of breaking the pieces into a one or two-step example the whole kata becomes a flowing process between two folks.  A complicated dance for sure.

This is further made difficult in that it contains several break-falls, roll-outs and about ten arm-bars.  Once I'm warmed, up this is fairly exciting because it represents a vast amount of technical work with a tremendous amount of physicality. 

After Monday night (and I took Ibuprofen) I wasn't quite sure how sore I'd be, but as Mark and I compared notes we both cataloged the level of discomfort we were both in.  Not that it was debilitating, but we both knew we less mobile that we cared to be if we were supposed to be operating at our best.  My muscles appeared to be forming a cast around my lower abdomen and back down to my mid thighs.  On top of this my knees were complaining just walking up single steps. 

And let me reiterate that I was barely able to get out of bed that morning and the first thing we do for a warm up is jumping jack then push up.  This goes from 1 to 5 and back down again.  I  honestly needed it to just get the blood pumping, but I was the last person to finish.  I just couldn't get my legs under me to stand up. 

In time the joints were lubed up and the muscles had some blood flow, but I was assigned to help Charlotte to work on her Kata.  She's 6 or 7 and when she's bored she just simply walks off.  Brutal.  We got through a kata five times and then the Oyo five times, but it was an act of god to get through all that.  I was never so thankful to do something different after we got that far.

After class turned out to be me and Sensei's Dan and Reed.  So it was the private lesson of dreams, but I had to hustle the whole hour to smooth out my half of the application.  Needless to say I slept like a log last night.

Reap and Sweep

Earlier in the day I made a poor choice with my lunch.  I mean it was delicious, but the amount of hot peppers made my stomach feel like a furnace and eventually gave way to a wave of gas that felt borderline dangerous in the wrong situation.

So when class started I was nervously joking with Mark about the throws we take on one of the moves; telling him not to do it hard or I'll end up pooping my gi.  We made a few jokes and class got started, but just like always, any jokes seem to come to fruition as content.

After warmup we laid out as many mats as we had and grabbed our partners.  Although we didn't work on throws, my concerns about hard falls were somewhat justified because we worked on foot sweeps which still end up landing us on the floor hard.

The four sweeps:

1. Sliding the instep to outer side of the lead foot.  If caught when the person is putting their weight on the lead foot they go boom.  You need good timing.

2. Similar to the first but you bring your foot all the way through; almost a low crescent kick.  This can turn a person all the way around if timed correctly.

3. Spinning sweep - Step forward (so right foot to left foot for example), turn and kneel, tripod stance, leg out and around.

The closest example I could find.

3a. Combine one and three.  If the initial sweep doesn't work then go directly to three.  It gets the back leg since you're so close.

4.  Dodge a punch, follow with knee, drop knee leg behind their lead leg and do the "elvis" and that leg comes out they go down.

4b. Scissor take down.  Dodge a punch. Round house kick to stomach, drop kicking leg to behind lead leg.  Switch to tripod stance and do a heel kick so that they trip over leg. 

I realize that these are terrible descriptions, but they are reminiscent of every old karate movie where someone gets their leg swept and they go down in a puddle.

After class was mostly dedicated to working on the application of Kyoku-Roku Dan.  We are about half way through one side.  So much to concentrate on, but nice to see a small amount of progress.

Progress at 6 months

I think I might have missed a few postings, but I guess there is nothing much to report that grabs the headlines.  Mark and I in a familiar pattern; Two kata, 10 bunkai, 1 Oyo, and 1 application. 

I was actually feeling very frustrated about progress.  I'm totally dependent on Mark for the partners practice and some of the pieces aren't necessarily logical and require some hands on correction to get correct. However Mark pointed out that we need less and less assistance to get going and can sort out more and more on our own.  Within 25 minutes we'd almost completed the above list. 

The Oyo is a combination of the bunkai and application.  Normally bunkai is reminiscent of my one or two step techniques from TSD; a formal attack with expression of technique in two or three moves.  However, the Nifanshi Shodan kata is relatively short so instead of just doing the two bunkai it was combined for brevity's sake. 

Unfortunately Mark and I struggled to remember this at first, but Reed proved to have the patience of Job and got us going again.  Within 20 or so attempts we started looking fairly good, but there a long way to go.

Our note from Reed Sensei was that we are about half way through the year and we are more than half way through the stuff we need to know.  So our pace is good, but once we have both applications squared away we'll both need to learn the other part of each.  And then some elbow techniques.  It still seems pretty far away at this point and I'm not feeling like we have enough time.  My next vacation is going to make me nervous about the forgetting again.

Sleepless

Last night was my first full two hour stint after coming back from vacation.  As you can imagine it was a challenge but that was mostly because I was sleep deprived.  I wanted to get back on my diet again in fear that I'll get a bout of gout if I'm not careful.  So that means no booze and cutting down on fatty stuff. 

I hate admitting it, but the drinks I do have really help me get to sleep.  With their removal I'm pretty much tossing and turning most of the night.  Not totally asleep and somewhat awake all at the same time.  The last time I did this it took three days to get my sleep cycle corrected.  I assumed that it would come quicker this time since it was only two months ago.  Wrong.

Anyway, it meant that I was dragging myself to class but, as usual, the attention to detail and activity level kept me going.  Class consisted of doing five of each of the last three katas.  15 kata doesn't sounds like a lot but after the first five I was dragging and puffing.  I can tell when I'm tiring out because the kicks start turning into a leg fling instead of a crisp action.

In the after class Mark and I just got started on the ten bunkai.  And then relearning the application series.  This time Mark is doing the other side of the application.  We got about half wayish - around the fifth step.  Being tired makes it a miserable affair trying to remember the smallest things. 

Hopefully Wednesday will bring a refreshing brain to the class and I'll feel less overwhelmed and stressed out.

Shūdokan 100!

As usual, I lost count of my classes and didn't realize it was the 100th one until just now. I had assumed that I should do something special that would require endurance and such, but instead after some work I got put in charge of Charlotte.  She's seven and actually a good student, but has no response most of the time.  Just a vacant stare.  

As I've mentioned I can barely stand working with kids because I don't know how to interact with them.  One of the worst things is getting instruction from Sensei that says practice this or that.  We all know that means that you keep practicing it until he says otherwise, but most of the young kids do it once and want to be done. Repetitive practice just doesn't go into the equation.  

My next frustration is that you can't offer "what would you like to do" and expect an answer.  I have to be directive and keep forgetting that little fact.  Despite my griping, Charlotte was able to learn the second half of a kata that I'm struggling through myself.  

The class consisted of warmups and then Mark and I were to run through as much as we can as it relates to the exam.  We didn't get very far because we couldn't remember the application to Nifanshi.  After a refresher from Reed we were back on schedule, but never got to through the bunkai for Kyoku Roku Dan.  Sigh.  The only way we are getting to get anywhere is by doing both classes.  I've got to get myself together to get both classes in or we are never going to move forward.

Shooting Stars

A blast of golden sparks played across my vision and cleared as quickly as it appeared, but for those few moments I was completely vulnerable.  As usual I would have loved to see all that in slow motion.  Probably a really cruddy block on my part; letting a hooking punch slip through and bang my chin.

This is what it felt like anyway

I've been off for a month and my practice has only been kata.  There hasn't been any exercise except for the occasional long walks on windy Scottish vistas.  Upon my return from my vacation I tried running, but I was only able to eek out a weak 2.5 miles.  So when I finally make it to class it turns out to be fight night.  Reed Sensei is getting ready to go to tournament this weekend and needs to get his head right, so that means we all get to practice a bit.  Thankfully we all had our teeth protection on.  The first time I've put mine in for over five years!?

To prep for fight night we have to warm up fairly well and do a bunch of speed drills coupled with a few tips on strategy.  And they we were ready to go.  Alas I was partnered with Reed right away and my glaring errors came to light.  The worse thing I do is stop fighting when he gets a good hit in.  If whoever is acting as judge doesn't see it then they don't stop action and I could get a good shot in, but I end up there getting tagged a second time because of this bad habit.

Something to work on should I ever go to another tourney.  I'm also very slow.  Or fast with really bad form and technique.  Sigh so much work to get back where I was. 

Yesterday I ran almost three miles.  I far cry from my big 5 before I left.  I'm hoping to run five on my birthday (Tuesday). 

App Happy!

It was a momentous night.  And definitely one where there was a karmic balance in place.  During the first hour post warm up I was given the four girls. 10, 8, 7 and 6.  Woe is me. The ten year old, is an excellent artist, but vexes me because she is bored of the routine work and easily gets frustrated with her younger cohort.  The others are a challenge because you can only get them to focus on the smallest changes at any given time.  

I got them to work on a practice celebration.  For them it's three sets of blocking (downward, cross; downward, cross, kick; downward, cross, kick, punch) and then drills that move up and down the floor.  Then it was on to three kata.  This was followed by the application.  The application uses the bunkai in a two person series.  The girls actually do this reasonably well considering their age and relative sophistication.  After that we reviewed the wrist locks; opposite side grab and same side grab.  Pretty substantial based on the fact that these gals are very young.

After class I got to Daniel Sensei's place early and wanted to stretch out a bit so when he showed up I was ready to go.  He surprised me by wanted to start the application of Roku Dan.  Unfortunately, this was reaching really far back in his memory so we were only able to get the first couple of sequences before the rest of the folks showed up.  With Reed Sensei we were able to get about eight pieces together before I had to go.  It was just a massive moment for me and Mark.  Although we still have a lot to go, the fact that we were able to work on this was just a fantastic mile stone.  

--
I was going to turn in my Black Belt paper and test fees this week, but we have a holiday Monday and then I'm off on vacation for the rest of the month.  I guess it'll have to wait till October.  Crap, I'm not going to remember anything!  Very frustrating indeed.

No Warmup!

Although it happens on occasion it is fairly rare.  As soon as we bowed in Reed Sensei grabbed Mark and me and ran through the application portion of Nifanshi shodan.  So my warmup in reality was a lot of head twists and face smashes.  Not ideal, but the amount of time to get directly into practice was great.  We then got partnered with the young ladies (8 and 10) to continue the pattern and then switch sides.  This lasted for the entirety of the class. 

After class was just working through the bunkai for Roku Dan.  I keep thinking that it's going to go fast, but for the forty minutes that I'm there we dig further into the foot work and body placement.  However for the first time we were able to get through all 10 bunkai.  It is a lot to absorb, but we are doing very well.  If I could have stayed for the last half hour I think Dan Sensei would have started the first part of the application.  I hate that I can't stay longer.

I've got two pages of my Black Belt paper written.  I was going to turn it in on Wednesday with my testing fee, but I want to take another look at the requirements.  I think it's only 150 words, which seems awfully short.  If that's the case I'll need to take a look at my work and figure out what the heck I need to be focusing on.

Shūdokan 95

I'm trying to compare the time I've been going to the amount of classes I've been to lately.  I don't think the overall number is worth really remarking on because it's going to keep climbing, but since I'm closing in on 50 numbers are taking on a larger significance.  I think I've been going for a little over a year with periodic gaps due to construction efforts.  I'm fairly pleased by recent progress and part of this is tracking my new katas.  Learning the Kyoku-Dan kata has been kind of grueling at times due to the level of finesse that's required. 

This level of finesse bumped up another level last night when I had to go over each hand position and foot position until I understood why they were going where they were going.  I also had to slow it down which gave me a flashback of my old teacher telling me to not rush to the end.  Whoops. 

Regular class was a lot of kicking.  However Reed Sensei decided to stop using each others hand for support which lead to the worst kicking I've done in a long time.  The drill is one kick for me and one kick for him and it builds from there.  We are supposed to be able to do tens kicks in a row.  I didn't realize I had lost a lot of my balance over the last couple of years.  It was so important at my last school. 

After the endless kicking we moved to speed drill.  Uke attacks and the we move to a side and do a side kick.  I feel so slow, but Reed pointed out that one side was better because I was actually stepping out better and giving myself a lot more room.  Nice catch.  It made my left kick way better!

Then on to practice Anan a couple of times with Ivanna and then a run at Roku Dan. After class was the refining of Roku Dan and then work on bunkai for up to the fourth before my alarm went off.  Frustrating not to have more time. 

Big Toe

After class on Wednesday I went to bed, but ended up tossing and turning most of the night.  I woke around 3 am thinking that I had dislocated my toe during the night.  I've definitely jammed my big toe in the past and this level of pain by-passed that.  I kept reviewing what I might have done that would have hurt so bad; a kick that dislocated, a break that's finally showing itself or a cramp?  

I finally got out of bed at four and called the nurse advice line and she thought it was gout.  Since I'm living a very healthy life at the moment I totally disagreed, but the pain was getting worse and worse.  It didn't warrant a visit to the ER, but I was starting to lose my ability to think rationally.  I couldn't put a bag of ice on it due to sensitivity and my wife managed to get me to gag down a handful of Ibuprofen to take off the edge.  

At this point I noticed my foot had to start to swell and I couldn't put any pressure on it at all.  After finding out that I couldn't get into my doctor I was directed to go to an emergent care center to get checked out.  My wife took me to the closest one and we walked in to the first appointment!  Unfortunately, she fell back on the same diagnosis - gout!  The only thing to do was get anti-inflammatories and put the bad foot up.  Two days later I could hobble around the house without gritting my teeth and by Sunday I could run again.  I was clear for beatings on Monday!

The nice thing about heavy duty anti-inflammatories is that my semi-persistent back pain is gone!  I hope this is a permanent thing.  It's wonderful.  

---
Class last night was a relatively fast affair.  Mark is turning 66 this week so we chatted about age and worked on our last two bunkai until it was time to bow in. I'm starting to think that he's having a hard time working on this stuff, or at least, focusing on it.  After several years prepping for his Black belt I think this must be less excited or he's burned out working on this stuff.  He's not practicing outside of class and it's starting to show.  I don't want to be frustrated, but showing him stuff that we've already done is painful, but there is nothing wrong with him memory for older stuff.  

Classwork consisted of working Nifanshi shodan.  After running through it several times with Mia, I partnered with Mark and we ran through the application (bunkai ohyo?) several time.  I'm not sure that we have it down, but lots of fun.  About four or five sets of moves going back and forth.  

No after class unfortunately.  Dan need to be somewhere and Reed needed to get back home.

Random Fight Night

On Monday Reed let us know that we'd be sparring on Wednesday.  I'd rather he surprise us on the day of the because I get anxious.  I'm not sure why I get so anxious, because I tend to enjoy the experience after the fact. 

We started the class working on the second Kyoku.  The Kyoku kata are specifically Shudokan in nature.  Due to my weird entry into the confirmation period I only know the first and now the eighth, so Reed asked Mark and Sarah to get me to work on the second.  Thankfully the work we've been doing on the ultra complicated ones makes the second kata feel relatively easy, but I'm sure I couldn't do it any justice one day later.

After that we set up for sparring.  This presented a challenge.  We had four adults and six children.  None of us (except for Reed) has any real experience judging.  My few runs at tournament didn't require me to participate in the judging side of things.  Although it shouldn't be tough, the basics, or the lack there of, turned much of our work into a slapstick performance.  The head judge should be bowed to after each awarding of a point.  This turned into bowing to the other opponent and then back to the judge and so forth.  And then at any given time Mark, who has trouble hearing, would just start as if the Judge called Hajime.  Of course at any given time two corner judges would be children under 10.  Their take on the proceedings could widely vary depending on their attention span. 

I was able to shut Mark out at 3-0, but I did get 2-3 with Reed.  This is phenomenal because I rarely score on him unless he makes an error.  This gives you an idea on the judging.  

After class was dedicated to working on Anan.  We rotated working with one another and really focused on a lot of finesse things, but I was itching to work on Roku dan.  However Reed has it in his mind that we need to work on Anan as a group.  As he says, "learning kata is a group activity". 

Four Month Learning Curve

The big excitement from last night was that Ivanna taught me the last couple of moves of Roku Dan!  She was thankfully fresh from teaching Mark the same thing last Wednesday.  Right on the tail of that I was able to learn the tenth bunkai related to this kata.  

I'm trying to measure the success so far.  Four months to learn the entirety of the kata and the 10 bunkai.  That's not to say that I'm actually refined to the point of comfort, but it looks pretty good.  I'm sure the last two sequences will need to be refined, but I love that the bunkai absolutely matches the actions taken in the kata.  It makes it easier to remember.  For instance, the last bunkai blocks the kick, steps in with a reverse chop to the ribs.  Uke grabs your wrist and you do a twist and push.  Boom!

Anyway, I'm down to eight months to have all the bunkai locked into place so I can start on the application.  I can remain consistent Reed might be able to confirm us sooner, but to have the level of flow I see him and Daniel execute it might take several months more.  Hard to say.  

An addendum

I think I'm about halfway through writing my thesis which I've been wanting to get out of the way.  

I usually ask the advanced students if they want help in their practice.  I.E. can I be the Uke?  So last night Ivanna says, "go ahead and choke me".  Well that just led me into getting kicked and punched.  I'm not so sure about my volunteer efforts after that.  

Anan

Following our five hour experience in Eugene and adding a hour and half drive afterwards I didn't end up practicing the new kata until the next morning.  Even then I was only able to get through a few stretches without it falling apart.

It should have been absolutely predictable that we were going to work on the kata at some point soon, but I was surprised when it became the content of the class and the after class.  All other content was moved to the side in order to cement the moves as quickly as possible. 

After reviewing Anan with Reed I was given the task of teaching it to Ivana.  I felt somewhat intimidated since she's several ranks above me, but she's got a rather pleasant attitude so whereas we didn't get far we were accurate.  After we ran through as much as we could I was given the task to play judge on two of the brown belts while they ran through five kata.  The rule is one compliment, one correction and then move on.  No second attempts because time was compressed.  I felt odd because I'm correcting a guy that taught me the kata, but he hasn't time to practice and the kata was looking frayed. 

After class it was running through Anan over and over until I had to go.  I was sad because it's another week that I'm not closer to the final moves of Roku Dan.  It's not that soul crushing because I have plenty of new stuff to work on, but it would be nice.

5 hours

Sensei contacted me on Thursday to see if I could travel up to Eugene with him to work with Albert Sensei.  He and MaryAnn had several questions about specific pieces of the kata then needed to work on and then, if time permitted learn a new kata.  My job was to learn the new kata with Sensei and hopefully act as another repository for knowledge. 

I didn't want to miss the opportunity to meet Albert Sensei, one of Reed's teachers for over 14 years.  The drive is an hour and half out of the thorn city so my whole Sunday was going to be shot (and more than likely, get me in dutch with the wife), but as usual I felt honored to be invited along and wanted to get a look at this level of training.  A kind of "peering behind the curtain" kind of thing. 

Albert Sensei is an unassuming man with a peppy, upbeat attitude and a non-stop patter.  He clearly loves to teach and educate.  He wants to make sure you understand exactly what he means and this can mean he'll give a long story to get there.  Apparently patience isn't my strong suit when time is on the line, so I would inwardly struggle with some of the stuff.  I'm starting to think "keep your mouth buttoned up" is a base level martial art thing. 

While Reed and MaryAnn when through a rather extensive check list of questions I practiced Roku dan an ungodly amount of times with Albert occasionally checking in to correct the movement of my hands and their relative moments to one another.  I'd like to say I'm more refined, but I'm back to thinking about what I'm doing and it doesn't look so good.  Back to starting and stopping.

When they finished their questions Reed and I learned Anaan, a Ryu (sp?) school kata.  Closely related to Goju Ryu, many of the blocks seemed right from the canon, but other portions have flowery, ostentatious hand work that is very reminiscent of Chinese kung fu.  You can definitely see the influences.  I ended up taking video of Reed doing all the steps in fear that my attempts to remember would be too feeble to be helpful later.

 When we were trying to learn a piece Albert had me lay down into a crunch position because, "I was the youngest one".  Hah, I'm pretty sure I was as old as he was. 

Detached Retina

While warming up for the beginning of class Mark told me that after our previous class he started seeing flashing lights in his vision.  After he visited the doctor he found out that he had a detached retina!  He thought that it was from the throws I was giving him on a leg sweep move.  Wow.  I was kind of feeling guilty, but he pointed out that it's just his body being old and we just have to take it easy with throws in the future.  Needless to say when we practiced that move again I was hyper aware of where he was going and how fast.

Regular class was laughably small.  Basically Mark and I with four very young kids.  I got three six year olds and was told to set up the sports floor.  These giant red and blue puzzle pieces are the mainstay of most dojos I've every been too and provide a nice barrier between my pointy bones and a hard floor. 

After we emptied the closet out and got the floor put together (we can't keep it down permanently because we are renting a space for the hour).  We had an exercise to teach the kids how to bridge.  One would bridge (a back arch with the shoulders and feet on the ground), one would roll balls under the arch and one would catch the balls.  As you can imagine this was met with incredible delight and much noise making.

After that was mastered, we were taught the full mount, open and closed guard, feet hooks, and an escape from full mount.  Once the kids got used to being in close proximity to one another they did a fairly nice job of twisting and rolling.  Thankfully Reed came and saved me gave me the option to do this same stuff with MaryAnn Sensei.  As usual I'm worried about my back, but since I was fairly warmed up I could bridge her and roll without any problem.  I took Ibuprofen in the evening just in case though. 

After class we met at the garage and ran through the kata about three times and addressed a lot of little pieces.  An arm out and foot placement in a couple of spots.  I'm not sure I remembered any of this in my morning practice though.  Too sleepy this morning.  However we are only a few moves from the end of the kata which feels tantalizing close.  The practice time is paying off.  We are three months in and the kata is almost fully realized.  In another month is should be fairly smooth and we might possibly working on the two man application. 

On the depressing side, by wife is getting a little tired of me being away from the house for so long.  She's been great with letting me have this time but it irks her because it only gives us a few hours a night to hang out.  I'm seeing that I'm going to have to make some breaks in the schedule to reduce that trouble spot. 

Dangerous Dance Of Death

Sometime back my buddy, Bob Patterson, had an article about folks looking for support in order to fund a documentary on the Dance of Death.  The skinny is in this article. 

The reason this caught my attention was that I read those comic books as a kid and saw those ads for the "Black Dragon Society" and how they fired my imagination.  This was augmented by endless viewings of kung fu movies on local cable access channels.  How it would be a wonder to fly through the air or be able to whirl my hands in complicated patterns to make striking like a snake seem so effortless. 

Three plus decades later I'm writhing around on the ground with a foot in the back of my shoulder while my arm is pinned in such a way that one sneeze would shatter my elbow joint and I think to myself, "man, he's got to improve his technique to make this hurt more". 

When I had a few minutes to think about the session I asked myself, "where did that sense of youthful wonder go?" In the thick of action, when me and my partner are experiencing a smooth synchrony, there is a shared frisson of energy.  This apparently only occurs when I'm learning, but much like staring at pictures of cute baby animals on the internet, it's a feeling of pleasure that only lasts for a relatively short time.  After I crest the learning curve I need something more complex and engaging to get the same zing I get the first time around. 

That being said I got a partial thrill learning the next bunkai for kyoku Roku dan last night.  After you get put into an arm lock you get to a snake-esque move with your captured arm which leads to a shudo to the chest of the other guy, followed by a liver punch and then an outlandish straight-legged kick that throws the other guy in the air.  Super fun!

As usual I get ahead of myself.  Although class was the standard block of practice I got assigned to two little girls to work on their kata.  Queue circus music.  I have so little skill with working with little kids.  No wonder my first Sensei got so much pleasure in assigning me work with them.  Sadist. 

I did have a moment of clarity in teaching when I realized that I could get one girl to do an inside crescent into her hand to sort out the move in a bunkai.   Reed was watching out of one eye so I felt proud when he emulated it.  I'm sure he would have done something way better and faster though. 

Flying Elbows Of Death

In the after class Reed Sensei sat us down gave us the low down on our requirements for Black Belt confirmation.  A fee, a thesis, and the components of the physical bits (kata, 2-man, bunkai, etc.).  An intriguing piece was "good attitude".  Apparently some folks would get big britches and be a bit condescending to lesser belts.  I don't know how that would even be possible since everyone there is so cooperative.  Different times with a bigger school allows all sorts to move through. 

The other area in which we are expected to perform is the advanced elbow technique.  There are roughly three levels of skill related to the elbow techniques; the first being basic - which would equate to moving out of the way and giving Uke a shot with a elbow.  The next level would be adding a should lock and strike.  The level Mark and I are going to be working on includes a brutal takedown coupled with an arm bar.  After ten of those I had to take a handful of vitamin I this morning - and I fell great. 

The throw and locks occurred during the regular class session after a brief warm up and some partner drills based on the Kyoku Shodan kata.  The browns are just starting their ramp up for the Black Belt process and this is the first of the Shudokan only katas.  The bunkai is pretty straight forward, but I'm feeling a bit bruised from the repetition.  Being the attacker can be a bit painful because the initiating punch is always getting blocked hard to open up some area. 

The after class session had the sit down as I mentioned above, but we went into Kyoku Roku right away.  Mark has missed a few classes so we had to review where he left off.  As agonizing as I find his learning pace, it must no worse than my own.  He has to go over it slowly and repetitively until he's ready to go on.  He then got a big dose of the next steps which I mentioned in the last post. 

My last addition to the kata, following the water cups, is the straight legged kick.  A silly looking think that yori's into a umadachi; the weirdest stance I've ever scene.  One leg bent and the foot forward while the other is straight with the foot turned in.  It's so you can execute a punch to the side while the feet remain in place.  Wild!